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BANGALORE: India's apparent support to a move by a United Nations agency to regulate the internet has irked local stakeholders who have warned the government against voting in favour of the proposals. Earlier this month, the International Telecommunication Union introduced for the first time proposals seeking to define spam and cyber fraud in a way that would have brought some aspects of regulating the 'international network' under its ambit.

While India is yet to sign off on the proposals, the state's public posturing has indicated a supportive stand. "ITU should only focus on the telecom sector and not get into information and communication technology as they tried to do through the Dubai convention last week," said Subho Ray, president of Internet and Mobile Association of India. The proposals have also created an international stand-off — with the United States, United Kingdom and other large European economies rejecting the need for such UN-backed regulation of the internet.

On the other hand, Russia and China are leading a bloc, which is in favour of ITU oversight , leading to concerns that a new Cold War is building up. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Cellular Operators Association of India have also asked the government not to support ITU proposals, fearing it would put curbs on the internet. "It is now well recognised that law enforcement agencies can misinterpret language even when it is not intended, the Mumbai arrest of two girls being a case in point," Ficci and COAI said in a joint statement, referring to the controversy last month over Facebook posts that were critical of late Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray.

"Defining spam requires making content-based determinations; a treatybased obligation could lead to India having to co-operate with other countries on controlling political or commercial speech," the associations cautioned. Industry is also not enthused about ITU's proposals to bring regional internet exchanges under its ambit as it would give the UN body a role in overseeing commercial agreements for internet traffic exchanges, according to Rajan S Mathews, director general at COAI, which counts Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Communications among members, besides Indian arms of multinational corporations such as eBay, Google, Facebook and Yahoo!.

The Internet Service Providers Association of India said any UN body on internet governance, even if formed, should completely keep itself out of content-related matters. "I think a UN body should be formed only if it involves multiple stakeholders , including the private sector, and not only governments, as has been the case with UN bodies," said Rajesh Chharia, Ispai's president. This is the second time that India has sided with countries such as China, Iran and Egypt to support a proposal for regulation of the internet. The foreign ministry initiated a similar proposal at the UN in Geneva last year for forming a committee on internet-related policies, but the effort did not find enough takers.

Information Technology secretary J Satyanarayana said the ITU proposals "will enable an environment for the greater growth of the Internet." For now, the government has decided that it needs to "consider the ramifications of this before taking a decision on signing." The government has said it will undertake 'necessary consultations', but is not clear how much room industry has to influence what stand the government will eventually take. "India's support clearly shows that it wants to look at the internet as a regulated network and the recent internal legislations also point in this direction ," said Pawan Duggal, an expert on cyber law and a Supreme Court lawyer.

"But India's internet community is jittery, as misuse of such regulations can go unchecked." Globally, the world's largest internet company by revenue, Google, has openly come out against any such internet regulation. Google vice-president and chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf wrote in his blog that the internet has brought unprecedented freedom to billions of people because it is borderless. "Some proposals could allow governments to justify the censorship of legitimate speech, or even cut off internet access in their countries," Cerf cautioned.